Share this article

Letter: Mothers can also be strong role models

I’m writing in response to the recent letter titled, “Father is essential to family structure.” I take exception to this letter due to the fact that my father passed away when I was 6 years old, leaving my mother alone to raise eight children ranging in age from 1 to 14 (six boys, two girls). Thankfully, my mother was college-educated and was able to work as a teacher, and had a strong mother who quit her job to help with child care.

My mother instilled in all eight of us the importance of values, love, respect and education, and I am happy to say that, even with the absence of my father, we all turned out to be strong, happy, successful people.

To generalize that “children need the firm, loving guidance of a strong confident male” is just ridiculous and insulting. Children need the guidance of a strong role model – male or female – and hopefully in a perfect world, both parents, but situations happen and this wasn’t the case for my family.

Would my siblings and I have loved to have had our dad, who was a Buffalo police officer, and would have been a terrific role model, in our lives? Of course. But we thank God that our mother was a strong, confident woman and was able to guide us to be the strong, confident adults that we are today.